Chapter 1

Julie woke up at 6:47 a.m. with the same thought she’d had every morning for the last three years: I’m already behind.

Her phone was face-down on the nightstand, buzzing like a trapped insect. She didn’t need to look. She knew the notifications by heart: Venmo requests from her mom (“just $50 until payday”), three unread texts from Sarah asking if she was “still alive,” and at least two Instagram stories from girls she went to college with girls who now had engagement rings, dogs, and jobs that sounded impressive on LinkedIn even if they paid nothing.

She rolled onto her stomach, pressed her face into the pillow, and tried to remember what it felt like to wake up excited about anything. Nothing came. Just the low hum of the radiator and the faint smell of last night’s takeout still clinging to the air.

She was twenty-seven. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a city she couldn’t afford. Her savings account had $412. Her credit card limit was maxed. Her job title was “Marketing Coordinator,” which sounded like something people with real careers had, but mostly meant she spent eight hours a day scheduling Instagram posts for a skincare brand that sold $80 serums she’d never buy herself.

She dragged herself out of bed, stood in front of the mirror in her underwear, and stared at the body she’d spent most of her twenties trying to hate less. The soft curve of her stomach, the faint stretch marks on her hips from when she gained fifteen pounds during the pandemic. She told herself she was “learning to love her body.” The truth was, she was just too tired to keep hating it.

She brushed her teeth, put on the same black jeans and white button-down she’d worn three times this week, and tied her hair back in the low ponytail she knew made her look “professional.” Professional. She almost laughed at the word.

By 7:32, she was on the subway, standing between two men who smelled like expensive cologne and exhaustion. She scrolled through her phone and landed on a photo of her college roommate, Lauren, who’d moved to Austin last year. Lauren was sitting on a rooftop bar with a golden retriever and a man who looked like he owned the bar. The caption read: “Living my best life #Blessed.”

Julie’s thumb hovered over the like button. She didn’t press it. She didn’t have the energy to pretend she was happy for someone else today.

At work, her boss, Marissa, 32 and already a director, called her into a glass-walled meeting room.

“Julie, we’re pivoting the Q3 campaign,” Marissa said without looking up from her laptop. “I need you to rewrite the entire content calendar by end of day. Can you handle that?”

Julie nodded. “Of course.”

She couldn’t. She already had three other deadlines. She hadn’t eaten breakfast. Her period was due in two days, and her cramps were already starting.

Back at her desk, she opened her laptop and stared at the blinking cursor. She thought about quitting. She thought about moving back home. She thought about calling her mom and admitting she was drowning. She thought about how everyone else seemed to be doing this adult thing effortlessly, and how she must be defective because she couldn’t figure it out.

She opened Instagram again. Another engagement announcement. Another baby announcement. Another “I quit my job to follow my dreams” post.

She closed the app, pressed her forehead to the cool surface of her desk, and whispered to no one:

“I’m trying so hard.”

No one answered. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The clock on her screen ticked to 10:14 a.m.

She lifted her head, took a breath, and started typing.

Because what else was there to do?

She was behind. She was tired. She was lonely. And she was still here.

Julie didn’t cry at work. That was the rule she’d made for herself sometime after her twenty-fifth birthday, when she realized tears in the office bathroom were a luxury she could no longer afford. Someone always knocked. Someone always asked if she was “okay.” And then she had to lie, and lying made her feel worse than the crying ever did.

But today, the rule broke.

It started small.

A Slack message from Marissa at 11:42 a.m.: “Julie, can you hop on a quick call with the creative team? They want to discuss the tone of voice for the new serum launch. You’ve got the brand voice down better than anyone.”

Translation: You’re free labor, and I don’t want to do it myself.

She typed back: “Sure, give me five minutes.”

She didn’t have five minutes. She had a migraine building behind her right eye and a spreadsheet that still needed to be finished by noon. But she joined the Zoom anyway, muted, camera off, because that was what good employees did.

The creative director, a man named Ethan who wore vintage T-shirts and spoke like he was auditioning for a TED Talk, launched into a twenty-minute monologue about “authenticity” and “female empowerment.” Julie watched the clock. She watched the little red dot next to her name that said she was present. She watched her own reflection in the black square of her camera-off tile and thought, That’s not a person. That’s just a placeholder.

When Ethan finally paused for breath, Marissa jumped in. “Julie, what do you think? Does this feel on-brand?”

Julie unmuted. Her voice came out thinner than she expected. “Yeah. It’s… fine.”

Silence. The kind of silence that says, We were expecting more.

Ethan laughed, the kind of laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. “Come on, Julie, give us something. You’re the target demo, right? What would you want to hear?”

Julie’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

She thought about the $80 serum she couldn’t afford. She thought about the women on Instagram who posted before-and-after photos with captions like “Finally feeling like myself again.” She thought about how she’d spent last night googling “how to stop feeling like a failure at 27.”

She said, “I think it’s bullshit.”

The Zoom room went still.

Ethan blinked. Marissa’s eyebrows shot up.

Julie kept going, the words spilling out like water from a cracked pipe. “The whole thing. The ‘empowerment’ angle. The idea that spending a hundred bucks on something in a frosted glass bottle is going to make us feel powerful. It’s not. It’s just another thing we’re supposed to want because we’re told we’re not enough yet. And I’m tired of pretending it’s anything else.”

Silence again. Longer this time.

Marissa cleared her throat. “Julie, maybe we can take this offline.”

“No,” Julie said. She surprised herself with how calm she sounded. “I don’t think we can.”

She looked at the grid of faces, half confused, half annoyed, and realized she didn’t care what they thought anymore.

She left the call.

She didn’t even click “Leave Meeting.” She just closed the laptop.

Then she stood up, walked to the kitchenette, and poured herself a glass of water from the tap. Her hands were shaking. She drank half of it in one go, then set the glass down so hard it cracked along the rim.

She didn’t go back to her desk.

Instead, she walked to the elevator, pressed the button for the lobby, and when the doors opened, she stepped out into the street like she was walking into someone else’s life.

It was raining. Not a dramatic downpour—just the kind of cold, steady drizzle that soaks through your coat in ten minutes. She didn’t have an umbrella. She didn’t care.

She walked three blocks before she realized she had nowhere to go. Work was behind her. Home was too far. She had $412 in her bank account, and rent was due in eleven days.

She stopped under the awning of a closed nail salon and leaned against the brick wall. Her phone buzzed. Six unread messages. A missed call from Marissa.

Julie spent that night on her friend Sarah’s couch.

She didn’t sleep. She scrolled through her phone instead, first job listings, then “how to survive without a job,” then, when that got too real, she opened Instagram. She told herself she was just looking at friends. She wasn’t.

She landed on a profile she hadn’t seen in months: @alexander.hayes

Alex Hayes. Thirty-one. Dark hair, sharp jawline, easy smile that looked like it had been practiced in front of a mirror but still felt genuine. He posted photos of himself hiking in places Julie had never been, holding coffee cups in minimalist apartments, and occasionally with his arm around women who looked like they belonged on magazine covers. The captions were short, thoughtful, and never thirsty. Things like: “Grateful for the quiet mornings.” “Chasing sunsets, not status.” “Sometimes the best conversations happen without words.”

Every comment section was full of women Julie didn’t know, typing hearts, fire emojis, and “this is what we all need” under every post. She had followed him years ago, back when they’d briefly overlapped at a friend’s party. He’d been charming, attentive, and asked her questions that made her feel interesting. She’d left that night thinking, If I ever date again, it should be someone like him. Then life happened. She forgot about him. Or thought she had.

Now, staring at his latest story, a black-and-white shot of him reading a book on a rooftop at sunset, she felt something stir. Not lust, exactly. More like recognition. This was the man every woman said she wanted: Successful but not arrogant. Kind but not boring. Independent but emotionally available. The kind of man who would never make you feel like you were begging for attention.

She tapped through his highlights. Travel. Fitness. A dog he co-parented with an ex who was apparently still his “best friend.” A photo of him volunteering at a soup kitchen, sleeves rolled up, looking like he belonged there.

Julie set her phone down and stared at the ceiling. She wondered what it would feel like to be the woman standing next to him in those photos. To have someone look at her the way he looked at the world—like it was worth paying attention to.

Then she remembered the Zoom call. The cracked glass. The $412 in her bank account. The fact that she’d just walked out of a job she needed.

She laughed once, quietly, into the dark. A bitter, tired sound.

Because the truth was, she didn’t need a man like Alex Hayes right now. She needed rent money. She needed sleep. She needed to figure out how to stop feeling like she was failing at being an adult.

But the fantasy lingered anyway. The idea that somewhere out there was a man who would see her not the polished version she showed the world, but the real one: tired, broke, scared, and still trying, and choose her anyway.

She picked up her phone again. Opened his profile. Hesitated. Then hit the follow button.

It was a small thing. A tiny rebellion against her own exhaustion.

She didn’t expect him to notice. She didn’t expect anything.

But for the first time in weeks, she let herself want something that wasn’t just survival.

Julie woke up on the couch with her neck stiff and one arm numb from being trapped under her body. Sunlight sliced through the half-open blinds and landed in thin, bright stripes across her face. She didn’t move right away. She just lay there, listening to the soft clatter of dishes in the kitchen and the muffled sound of Sarah humming something off-key.

Her phone was on the coffee table, face down, exactly where she’d left it last night.

She didn’t reach for it.

Not yet.

She knew what was waiting: A dozen unread messages from Marissa. Probably an email from HR. Maybe a text from her mom asking why she hadn’t answered yesterday.

Sarah appeared in the doorway holding two mugs of coffee. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and no makeup, her hair in a messy bun. She looked like the kind of friend who had already decided Julie was staying for at least a week.

“Morning, fugitive,” Sarah said, handing her one of the mugs. “You look like you got hit by a truck.”

“I feel like I got hit by a truck,” Julie said. She sat up slowly, cradling the coffee like it was a lifeline. “Thanks for this.”

Sarah sat cross-legged on the floor across from her. “You gonna tell me what happened?”

Julie took a long sip. The coffee was strong and slightly burnt, the way she liked it. “I walked out of a Zoom call yesterday. Told my boss the new campaign was bullshit. Then I just… left.”

Sarah’s eyebrows shot up. “You quit?”

“I didn’t say the word. But yeah. I think I did.”

Sarah let out a low whistle. “Holy shit. That’s iconic.”

“It’s terrifying,” Julie corrected. “I have no plan. No money. Rent’s due in ten days. I’m probably going to end up living in my mom’s basement, eating ramen until I’m forty.”

Sarah tilted her head. “You’re allowed to be scared. You’re also allowed to be proud of yourself for once.”

Julie stared into her coffee. “I don’t feel proud. I feel like I broke something I can’t fix.”

“You didn’t break anything. You stopped pretending. That’s different.”

“I’ve got a full day,” Sarah said, glancing at Julie, who was still curled up on the couch with the blanket pulled up to her chin. “I’ll be back around seven. There’s leftovers in the fridge, and the Wi-Fi password is on the fridge door if you need it.”

Julie nodded, the coffee mug still warm in her hands. “Thanks. For everything.”

Sarah paused at the door, hand on the knob. She turned back and gave Julie a look that was half concern, half resolve.

“Hey,” she said. “Listen to me for a second. You don’t have to figure it all out today. Or tomorrow. Or even this week. Okay? You just walked away from a job that was eating you alive. That takes guts. You’re not broken. You’re just… recalibrating.”

Julie tried to smile. It came out wobbly.

Sarah softened. “Rest. Seriously. Sleep, eat, stare at the ceiling, whatever. Don’t worry about a job right now. You’re smart, you’re good at what you do, and the world is full of companies that would be lucky to have you. You’ll find something. And until then?” She gestured around the small apartment. “Crash here as long as you need.

Sarah crossed the room in two steps and bent down to hug her. It was quick but firm, the kind of hug that said I’m not going anywhere.

Then she straightened up, grabbed her keys again, and pointed at Julie with mock sternness. “No job hunting today. That’s an order. I’ll see you tonight.”

The door clicked shut behind her.

Julie sat there for a long time after Sarah left. The apartment felt quieter without her, quieter, but not empty. She could still smell the coffee, hear the faint hum of the radiator, and feel the warmth of the blanket Sarah had thrown over her last night.

Julie made herself a small breakfast: half a banana, a piece of toast with the last of Sarah’s peanut butter, and another cup of coffee. She ate standing at the counter, slowly, like she was relearning how to do normal things. When the plate was clean, she felt something shift: not courage exactly, but the tiniest spark of momentum. She couldn’t stay on the couch forever.

She pulled on her coat, slipped into her sneakers, and stepped outside.

The air was crisp, the kind of fall morning where the sky looks freshly washed. She walked without a destination, just letting her feet carry her past brownstones, coffee shops with long lines, and dogs in sweaters. She kept her hands in her pockets, her phone still buried in her coat. She told herself she wasn’t avoiding it anymore, she was just choosing when to look.

She walked for twenty minutes, maybe thirty, until she reached a small park she hadn’t been to in years. There were benches under bare trees, a fountain that had been turned off for the season, and a few people scattered around with books or earbuds. She found an empty bench, sat down, and finally took out her phone.

She didn’t open email first. She didn’t check the missed calls or the Slack messages from work. She opened Instagram.

And there it was.

A new follower notification. alexander followed you.

Her heart did a stupid little flip.

She tapped his profile. His grid looked the same, thoughtful, curated, effortlessly cool. But when she scrolled to her own profile (just to make sure it wasn’t a glitch), she saw something else.

Every single one of her photos, every one she’d posted in the last two years, had a new like. The blurry selfie from last summer. The coffee cup she’d photographed at 7 a.m. before a shift. The one of her and Sarah laughing at a dive bar, both of them a little drunk and happy. Even the old one from college, where she was standing on a rooftop in a sundress, wind in her hair, looking freer than she’d felt in years.

All of them. Every. Single. One.

Her breath caught.

Then she saw the message.

A simple DM, sent twenty minutes ago:

“Hey Julie. Been a while. Saw you followed me and thought I’d say hi. Hope you’re doing okay. That rooftop pic still looks like the best version of you.”

No emojis. No over-the-top compliment. Just quiet, direct, and somehow exactly the right thing.

She stared at the screen for a long time. The park faded around her. The cold bench, the wind, the distant traffic—all of it blurred.

She didn’t know what to write back. She didn’t even know if she should.

But she felt something she hadn’t felt in weeks: A tiny, fragile thread of possibility.

Not that he was the answer to everything. Not that one message would fix her life. But that maybe—just maybe—someone out there still saw her, really saw her, and thought she was worth reaching out to.

She didn’t reply yet. She just sat there, phone in her lap, watching the leaves skitter across the path.

For the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel like she was falling behind.

She felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.